Reparations paid to SLAVE OWNERS only stopped being paid by UK Government 2 years ago

[AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth]

IANBU to think it's a fucking scandal that

"You might expect this so-called “slave compensation” to have gone to the freed slaves to redress the injustices they suffered. Instead, the money went exclusively to the owners of slaves, who were being compensated for the loss of what had, until then, been considered their property. Not a single shilling of reparation, nor a single word of apology, has ever been granted by the British state to the people it enslaved, or their descendants.

Today, 1835 feels so long ago; so far away. But if you are a British taxpayer, what happened in that quiet room affects you directly.

Your taxes were used to pay off the loan, and the payments only ended in 2015

The benefits of slave-owner compensation were passed down from generation to generation of Britain’s elite. Among the descendants of the recipients of slave-owner compensation is the former prime minister David Cameron.

www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/29/slavery-abolition-compensation-when-will-britain-face-up-to-its-crimes-against-humanity

I always think of things like this when people say 'slavery was in the past, it's got nothing to do with what happens now' - as if the repercussions of that time aren't still flowing down through history into our world today.

The government paid for the freedom of slaves. Otherwise we'd have had to have a civil war like in the USA.

people aren't all that woke in 1835 but they did the right thing in the best way they could according to the customs and morality of their time

One day people will wake up and realise that the Conservatives exist to line their own pockets.

I’m actually amazed at this! Wtf?!

Also, payments were NOT being made to slave owners until 2015. The payment was made in 1835 with money the government borrowed. Repayments on that loan ended in 2015.

Slavery was hideous and it's consequences affect our world today but let's get the facts straight....

Thanks britbat I was trying to post the same but my phrasing was off.

I appreciate the value of a good headline, but this one is too much The Scum and too little of the reality!

Yabu. The government had to borrow to make the payment in 1835. It allowed slaves to be freed without too much opposition and without the violence associated with emancipation in America. We spent the money getting on for 200 years ago. Slaves we freed nearly 200 years ago. We have been making debt repayments on this since. We’ll be paying for freeing most of Europe from Nazi rule for decades to come and ironically paying for ourselves to be freed from rule by the Germans for even longer. It’s the way we manage to make massive payments.

@britbat23 that isn't actually the case.

People in the UK in 1800s knew slavery was wrong. It was only tolerated because it happened far away, and polite society could pretend it didn't have anything to do with them. It wasn't discussed or acknowledged. Consider Jane Austen's Mansfield Park - when Fanny Price mentions the slave trade she is met with 'dead silence' from the company, and it is never explicitly states that the house at Mansfield Park is built on the profits of sugar, on the backs of slaves.

People in 1835 knew it was wrong. But they looked the other way and avoided the subject and turned a blind eye because into the country poured riches and opportunities that they didn't want to give up, and they made the decision that the subjugation and enslavement of Africans was an acceptable price to pay for the benefits they enjoyed.

It's historically inaccurate for us to absolve them of their responsibility for the decisions they made. When literally thousands died on slave ships and were thrown overboard do you think those in charge didn't realise it was wrong? Or when families were split up and auctioned off and dragged away in chains for a life of brutal labour? Of course they did. They just made a conscious moral choice that their profits were more important.

Don’t you have anything else to worry about?

Up to the descendants who benefitted like David Cameron to use that money morally (fat chance!)

All too easy to judge the past by the standards of today.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slave-owners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

Interesting too to read which families today directly benefited from slavery. The amount given them was way out of proportion of the times too. This has always infuriated me, that many wealthy families today aquired their money through the blood, sweat and tears of slaves. Absolutely disgusting.

Your title is wrong. Your op says its wrong

Good work

The government paid for the freedom of the slaves? OR the government paid the slave owners to free the slaves? The payment for which finished two years ago. I understand it was a loan. I can read. A loan which finished two years ago.

And btw shirt your snidey little remark shows you have very little to fill your time.

And yes, it was widely known that slavery was hideous in the 1800s and that it was nearing an end of its 'usefulness' due to industrialisation. So a payment to the slave owners was convenient.

All too easy to judge the past by the standards of today.
True, but now we know better why compensation in recent times. The slaves families should be given compensation too.

Britbat
If you read my OP, you will see that I mentioned the loan, which was paid off in 2015.

That makes it all alright thought

yes the whole post is in fact wrong, until 1835 slavery was legal you cannot just take peoples legal property away without compensation as morally wrong as we consider it these days.

Can you imagine the out cry if in 2035 the government ruled that owning property was wrong and made it illigeal to own a house so siezed everyone house and made it state property without giving any compensation there would be riots and maybe even a full blown rebellion (yes its distasteful comparing human lives to other property but needs to be done).

And remeber slave owners were rich and powerful so could afford to raise an army and fight a civil war (though there was a lot of normal people that were slave owners it was a legitimate investment that encourged widows and other such pension funds to invest into slave so it was not only the rich that had slaves but also the little old lady down the street who lost her husband while fighting in the navy etc).

Don’t you have anything else to worry about?
If we all took that atttitude these threads would be dead. Why shouldn't this thread be worthy of attention. The Op is drawing our attention to yet another government outrage.

"All too easy to judge the past by the standards of today"

Well yes, perhaps. But if there was any loan on which it would be accptable to default on, this would have been it.

And make the repayments which ended in 2015 to the descendents of the slaves instead.

The benefits of slave-owner compensation were passed down from generation to generation of Britain’s elite.

So what's your alternative, OP? The American Civil War emancipated slaves without compensation. In economic terms it cost about the same as it would have cost for the Federal government to buy all the slaves and set them free (ie, pay compensation to the "owners"); you're welcome to argue that a war which killed about a million people (including, as it happens, around fifty thousand slaves) is worth it in order to have the moral highground of not pay compensation to slavers.

With respect, I disagree.

But if there was any loan on which it would be accptable to default on

Government loans aren't hypothecated. Countries which default on loans just default on loans, and pay the economic costs of that. For the UK in its current state to default on loans - bearing in mind our whole economy rests of cheap government borrowing - would be insane.

I would take a guess that most people would object to paying a loan until 2 years ago Cub.

It's not widely known and it's pretty shocking

Thank you araiwa. Sterling response

I would take a guess that most people would object to paying a loan until 2 years ago

So you think the UK is in a position to default on sovereign debt in order to maintain the moral high ground? And if you're going to play "but we should compensate the descendants of slaves" then let's say "who's more likely to suffer from a 10% drop in the economy, David Cameron or the, er, descendants of slaves>"

Default on sovereign debt would completely fuck the UK. It would make what happened to Greece look like a walk in the park.

every single person on the planet is descended from slaves, and every single person on the planet is descended from slave owners, so if you think compensation is owed from the decedents of owners to the decedents of slaves, just pay yourself a nice fat bonus, job done.